Aug 12, 2009 | Wildlife Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DBTWS0043.swf, 396,600 [/swf]
The Eastside in August is usually pretty darn quiet when it comes to wildlife as I’ve mentioned. Our property even is getting quiet with many of the adult birds heading out leaving us to babysit their kid. One kid that’s a lot of fun to watch is the male White-headed Woodpecker. He’s just learning his way around the feeders and as such, he’s not sure if he should stand his ground at the suet against the Steller Jay kids and Clark’s Nutcracker kids. Being the smaller of the three, our little woodpecker doesn’t yield very often to these bigger birds.
He’s 5th or 6th generation White-headed to come to our feeders as kids. It’s pretty darn habituated, doesn’t even look at the dogs when they walk a couple of feet underneath him. So my sticking my head out the window with a 200-400VR pointed at him didn’t phase him a bit. I had flash already to go but when I saw the way the background seemed to envelope him, I decided that brightening his head wasn’t worth it. I have programmed the Function Button on my bodies so they disengage the flash which makes turning it off very easy.
Photo captured by D3x, 200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 11, 2009 | Wildlife Photography
I so admire great macro photography because I am pretty rotten at it. The biggest trick to it is finding it and as this piece in Nat’l G points out with this really cool piece, finding it might be even more difficult that I imagined. The critters in the piece are down right cool and the photos, pretty schweet! If this type of photography really excites you and you want to learn more, look at all the highlights. You look in the eyes of the critters and at times at the abdomens you can see the lights and lighting pattern used to make the image. Light is everything and this is a great way to learn it.
Aug 10, 2009 | Landscape Photography
Give this a read and try to wrap you mind around the volume. Wow!
Aug 10, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5721.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
Jake had the itch to photograph some shorebirds so early Sunday morning we headed to our favorite coffee shop and with a brew in hand headed to Mono Lake. August is just not a great time to be finding wildlife on the Eastside. Most breeding birds are done and leaving, their kids too stupid to be photographed. Falls migrants from the north are just starting to show up and unless you want to spend hours just finding them, you ain’t going to get any glass on them. No matter, we checked out one, two, three locales. We got skunked.
We were heading home when I said, “How about checking out that plateau up on the ridge?” A few seconds later Jake had the truck whipped around and heading back up the highway. We started out at 7700′ altitude and when we finished climbing the peak, we were just short of 10,000′! It was a wonderful new area we found to explore and if the light hadn’t sucked, I would have images to show you here. As it was when we reached the top of the peak and catching our breaths we had this great view of Mono Lake. We are planning to go back when the smoke from the fires has cleared, should make a great pano.
Photo captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital fim
Aug 7, 2009 | Landscape Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DLCMCGL2320.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
I’m always asked, “How much time do you spend on the road?” The answer is six months out of the year which means, we spend six months out of the year at home and I like that! The Eastern Sierra is a gorgeous place! It’s not full of wildlife but just enough to keep me shooting. But it is overflowing with scenery and landscapes at every turn. This sunset from last night is just one example. I made turn out the door and then a turn down the deck and made the click. The biggest challenge, which end of the deck to shoot from.
I’m often asked how I get the depth of color in my images. This photo which is right from the camera is an example of what I’m talking about. While I’m normally in Auto WB, when shooting sunrises and sunsets I switch to Cloudy WB and typically, but not always, set exp comp to -1. In this case, I set it to -1.5 stops. Then I just shot.
Photo captured by D3x, 45PC-E on Lexar UDMA digital film
Aug 6, 2009 | Wildlife Photography
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/ah0328.swf, 500, 402 [/swf]
This one snuck past me. Here’s an interesting read at NatGeo which has the science for the claim.
“But in terms of body size, the hummingbird moves at an average of 385 times his own body length a second—blowing away the falcon’s 200 body lengths a second.”
